“Sites have improved, and we now know much more about e-tailing usability. Today, poor content is the main cause of user failure.”
e-Commerce Usability
See, it’s (still) the content, st….!
All posts about
Usability
Why is usability so important in healthcare?
Too bad user experience (still) doesn’t ring a bell.
“Usability is critical for any medical device and is a key element of our product design and innovation. A product may be technically excellent, but if there is a problem with how it is used or applied, its effectiveness will be impaired.”
Mobile Usability Update
“The user experience of mobile websites and apps has improved since our last research, but we still have far to go. A dedicated mobile site is a must, and apps get even higher usability scores.”
How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?
I will stay much longer when there’s something interesting to read, which is mostly not the case.
“Users often leave Web pages in 10-20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer because visit – durations follow a negative Weibull distribution.”
Do you make these 4 mistakes when carrying out a usability review?
Following review recipes (a.k.a. tips, do’s and dont’s) means you’re following algorithms; if you follow anything, let it be heuristics.
“When properly carried out, usability reviews are a very efficient way of finding the usability bloopers in an interface. But there are four common mistakes made by novice reviewers: failing to take the user’s perspective; using only a single reviewer, rather than collating the results from a team; using a generic set of usability principles rather than technology-specific guidelines; and lacking the experience to judge which problems are important.”
(David Travis a.k.a. @userfocus)
Transmedia Design for the 3 Screens (Make That 5)
Increasingly ‘computer’ becomes a generic term; its instantiations matter.
“Mobile use will rise, but desktop computers will remain important, forcing companies to design for multiple platforms, requiring continuity in visual design, features, user data, and tone of voice.”
(Jakob Nielsen a.k.a. @NNgroup ~ Alertbox)
Try to Be a Test User Sometime
We call this “Eat your own dog food.”
“In pilot studies, you can occasionally relax the need for real users and let members of your own team serve as test participants. It’s good for them.”
Intranet Portals: Personalization Hot, Mobile Weak, Governance Essential
The term ‘portal’ sounds a little old-fashioned; just like ‘intranet’.
“Nineteen new case studies of enterprise portals find slow growth in new features; the focus is on robust integration and formalizing governance.”
The Difference (And Relationship) Between Usability And User Experience
DTDT: One is a quality of an artifact in use; the other is an emerging phenomenon within the human, at the moment, during the episode, and in the long-term.
“After web site accessibility, ‘user experience’ is probably the phrase that most people tend to confuse usability with. Whilst this topic has been discussed by various experts in the respective fields, I feel the need to write about it for two main reasons. The first reason is that several posts I have encountered emphasize the distinction between these two terms, yet they fail to highlight the relationship that exists between usability and user experience. The second reason is that whilst most of the posts are similar in nature, I have found some minor, albeit very valid points scattered in various posts I have read. Therefore, the objective of this post is to discuss these two terms, whilst highlighting their differences and more importantly the relationship that exists between them in a clear, concise way.”
(Justin Mifsud a.k.a. @justinmifsud ~ Usability Geek)
Why WSJ Mobile App Gets ** Customer Reviews
“A confusing startup screen that offends existing subscribers dooms The Wall Street Journal’s iPhone app to low ratings.”
Reliability and Dependability in Usability Testing
“Usability testing is a form of user research, in so far as it allows you to make conclusions about a large population based on observations of a small sample of that population. Essentially, we try to assess our products’ suitability for our marketplace – as well as its usability for the population of interest – by testing it with a group of typical users. Usability testing often involves both quantitative and qualitative data – either of which can be subject to misunderstandings. This column discusses principles of rigorous research as they apply to usability testing, with an emphasis on reliability and dependability.”
(Mike Hughes ~ UXmatters)
Mini-IA: Structuring the Information About a Concept
“In a miniature information architecture, coverage of a single topic is chunked into units that are connected through simple navigation.”
Six Things User Experience Designers Forget When They Criticize Websites
“It’s easy to criticize the user experience of an application or website, because we’re all end users. But sometimes we use it once, while many have to use it day after day as a part of their job. We talk about how we like using some sites, but there’s always the ‘I wish it was way.’ Still, we are our own worst enemies. We constantly pick at sites and snipe on Twitter how certain missing features are UX 101, but we don’t offer constructive feedback. We don’t understand that some decisions are based on conscious business decisions. Worst of all, we don’t get that company culture, most of all, plays a part in the final product. Not every company is Apple where design is king. Trade offs are made all the time, sometimes without any input from the user experience stakeholders. All good user experience designers make decisions regarding what they can live with and what they can’t.”
(Patrick Neeman ~ usabilitycounts)
International Usability: Big Stuff the Same, Details Differ
“User testing on 3 continents confirmed that the main usability guidelines hold worldwide, but many other considerations exist to better support international users.”
user-interface, user-experience & usability explained
“So in short, when I’m ‘interacting’ with a website I’m using its user-interface design. How I ‘feel’ and my ‘preferences’ when using it is my user experience and how ‘easy and intuitive’ it is for me to perform the functions I came to do, is a measure of its usability. As you can see, it’s really hard for someone to specialise in one of these areas without an understanding of the other two.”
(Bernhard Schokman a.k.a. @bernardschokman ~ myware)
ROI of UX
“If we can measure the exact ROI of UX, we can demonstrate the value of the UX team, their work and also justify the need for research when it is necessary. Often the complaint around UX is speed. We can speed up the UX process by sketching, measuring features when they are live, and evolving our designs rather than working to create a final and highly polished version at launch. We can calculate the trade-off of using this faster deployment method rather than the more traditional process of doing lots of user testing up-front. There will be times where it isn’t appropriate, and knowing the numbers allows us to justify this to the business. A caveat for the faster deployment method is that the UX team must be very senior and experienced.”
(Marie-Claire Jenkins a.k.a. @missmcj ~ i-thought)
courtesy of rolandnagtegaal
Ubiquitous Usability
“For too long usability has been the preserve of geeks – a specialism confined to websites and screens, form factors and devices. We need to realise that usability – in other words ‘how easily people can use something to achieve a goal’ shouldn’t just be restricted to the lab and the engineer. It should be something that everyone expects to get, and everybody strives to provide. Usability should apply to all walks of life and everything that we encounter – it should be ubiquitous. It needs to be about the services we use and the spaces we inhabit.”
Usability testing with children: A lesson from Piaget
“Children are becoming an increasingly important target group on the web. Good usability and high user experience are crucial aspects for a successful website. Early and repetitive user testing is the way to go. If we address children on our website, we need to focus on what they want. We need to include children as a target group in our user testing. In this post, I’d like to take a look at usability testing with different age groups.”
(Sabina Idler a.k.a. @SabinaIdler ~ usabilia)
Designing Maps Applications for Usability on Mobile and Desktop
“Maps API applications are accessed on desktop and mobile devices of many shapes and sizes. Each application has unique goals for conveying information effectively and for facilitating user interactions. Learn how to improve user experience by optimizing the presentation of your map and data and by thoughtful user interface design.”
(Luke Mahé, Jez Fletcher, Justin O’Beirne ~ Google I/O sessions)
iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing
“iPad apps are much improved, but new usability problems have emerged, such as swipe ambiguity and navigation overload.”
